ALDRICH: Western alienation needs to be addressed

Premier Brian Pallister reiterated the importance of working with provincial partners and Ottawa during a scrum on Tuesday.JOSH ALDRICH/Winnipeg Sun/Postmedia Network

As a born-and-raised Albertan I completely understand the feeling of Western alienation hitting new heights in the wild rose province.

Up until three weeks ago, I had a 780 area code. These feelings are absolutely legitimate and need to be addressed.

What I cannot get behind is the idea of Wexit, or western separation. There has to be a better way forward, there must be a better way forward.

The movement had a slow boil under the four years of NDP rule and the first term under the federal Liberals and Justin Trudeau. On Monday night, with their re-election, it exploded.

The sentiments are not just held by those to the West as calls supporting separation and sympathizing with alienation flooded talk radio in Manitoba.

Do I think we’ll ever get to the point where a referendum on forming a new country in the west will be held? No. The concept in and of itself is asinine. I foresee no circumstance where B.C. would ever join — and even Manitoba is questionable at best on the movement — which would leave Alberta and Saskatchewan even more landlocked with no way to get oil to tidewater, except still through the U.S. at a discount rate.

The resentment, of course, runs deeper than merely a pipeline.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe tweeted out a letter to the prime minister immediately following Monday’s election, calling on him to cancel the carbon tax, commit to negotiating a new equalization formula that is fair to Alberta and Saskatchewan, and to committing to building a pipeline to tidewater.

The letter was on the back of all 14 ridings in Saskatchewan and 33 of 34 in Alberta going Conservative, and Trudeau at least giving the two provinces a courtesy wave during his acceptance speech, saying he wants to work with them. Although this was after he put a new twist on his father’s one-finger salute to the West when he jumped up to the podium to deliver his acceptance speech, cutting the feed from Andrew Scheer one minute into his concession.

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister reiterated the importance of working with provincial partners and Ottawa during a scrum on Tuesday.

It could all mean a major role for someone like Liberal MP Jim Carr out of Winnipeg South Centre to carry the water for the west.

“It will be interesting to see how Justin Trudeau makes up his cabinet in order to reflect Western dissent,” said Malcolm Bird, a Political Science associate professor at the University of Winnipeg.

So far it is all talk. Which is all it has ever been with Trudeau, save for spending $4.5 billion of taxpayer money on a private pipeline expansion project as it was being shut down. It is still tied up in the courts and there is potential it gets shelved forever if the Liberals need to make a deal with the NDP, Green Party, and the Bloc Quebecois.

This is in spite of Alberta being the economic engine for Canada for a generation, and the oil industry propping up other provinces’ budgets and social programs. The biggest benefactor and denouncer has been Quebec.

When the Liberal party pushed their economic growth numbers and low unemployment stats across the country, they forgot Alberta which has been hammered on both fronts. They are hurting and need to be heard.

Separation, however, is not the answer. It just creates more issues. The real way to solve the problem is to actually build bridges, and this is where it will be interesting to see what olive branches are actually extended out west with the lack of any Liberal representation.

“I listened to this from Quebec for years and I don’t like listening to it from Western Canadian friends of mine. I have no time for that kind of thing,” said Pallister. “To make the country, you work together on it. You make a commitment to it. It’s a relationship. My wife and I have been together for 35 years and we don’t get stronger as a couple by threatening to leave every week.”

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.